This past Sunday, my family and friends of my mom, did our annual breast cancer walk. This is our ninth year walking in honor of my mom. I can’t believe we have been doing this for NINE years!! Four years ago, we did the walk and then went to the hospital to be there when my niece, Annabelle, was born. Now, Annabelle is walking right along with us

I am so amazed and proud of my mom. She is an inspiration. She is even stronger than last year!

Daniel and Maggie got married on August 22, 2009. It was a BEAUTIFUL ceremony and a really fun reception. I have never seen so many people crying during the speeches and special dances. My goodness, the emotions were flowing!!

It was really great to spend quality time with Maggie getting ready for the wedding. I feel like our friendship has grown so much recently, and I am thankful for such a wonderful friend who always makes me laugh!

First of all, if you haven’t read The Hunger Games….Read it! It is a GREAT book that will have you staying up late to see what will happen next. It is about a teenage girl in a futuristic North America, forced by the government to compete against fellow teenagers in a battle to the death. Sounds disturbing, but it is amazing.

Then read the sequel, Catching Fire, which came out last month. But be warned…the ending is a cliff-hanger that leaves you wanting more.

Finally, The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo is a book I read for my book club. It is something I never would have picked on my own, so it was interesting to read something so different from my typical choices. It is a murder mystery set in Sweden. The first 100 pages are slow, but stick with it! It is fascinating to learn about Sweden and get a whole new cultural perspective.

For our two-year wedding anniversary, Matt and I went to Catalina for the weekend. I still love being married, and we had a blast biking, snorkeling, eating, and soaking up the sun! In fact, I think we got too much sun, since we were both peeling a few days later

This is the theater that shows ONE movie, ONCE a day. That weekend it was Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

This weekend Maggie, one of my favorite people, had her first bridal shower. She was glowing and it was clear that everyone there loves and supports her so much! I am so happy and excited for Maggie and Daniel. They have been together since they were like 15 years old, and they are still adorable. I know they will have a beautiful marriage. I can’t wait for the wedding in August!

The beautiful bride!

Mother and daughter

2 of the bridesmaids and flower girl

Mr. and (soon-to-be) Mrs. Reinker

Everyone brought a favorite recipe and put it on a scrapbook page for Maggie. Here are the Reinker girls hard at work!

We had our first party in our house for the 4th of July. My family and some Orange County peeps came over to celebrate Independence Day with some delicious food. Then we all headed to Sarah and Jarrod’s to watch fireworks from their backyard. That night we had our first overnight guests (5 of them!) in the new house. At our apartment, guest always had to sleep on the couch. Well, despite having 2 more beds and 4 bedrooms, we STILL had to have people sleep on the couch!

So a few months ago, Matt and I decided that we would have a “date day” once a month. This would be a day that we would try to spend doing new things (try a new restaurant, activity, etc.) This month, we started the day off with lunch at Q’ero in Encinitas. We have been to Q’ero before, but since it is on the expensive side, we decided it qualified as “special” enough for date day. The food at Q’ero is AMAZING! They serve South American and Peruvian dishes that are out of this world. I would say that it is currently my favorite restaurant. Everything has a ton of flavor and they use a lot of rich spices.

We started out with some sangria and the Antojitos, which are plaintain chips with roasted garlic and Parmesan cheese, served with the most delicious Peruvian hot-pepper sauce. They actually sell the sauce bottled at the restaurant and we had to buy some!

For our main course, Matt got the Pobre (a skirt steak sandwich with carmelized onions and goat cheese) and I got the Pachamanca ( a sandwich of slow-braised marinated pork). Both were delicious! We also got a side of sweet potato fries and platano relleno (plaintain cakes filled with black beans and topped with sour cream and scallions). Yum!

To burn all those calories, we headed down to Balboa Park and played about a half a round of frisbee golf. Neither of us had ever played before, and we were a little intimidated by some of the guys with their professional bags of 10 or so discs and their ability to launch a frisbee. We were terrible and I was a little embarassed for myself (the par for each hole was 3-4 and I averaged about an 8), but it was good to do something different.

We finished up date day with an international beer party with a bunch of Matt’s coworkers. Everyone brought a beer from a different country and we learned that beers taste pretty much the same, no matter where they’re made.

On Sunday, my neices came over for one of the last few swims in the condo complex pool (we move to our house in less than 2 weeks!!!). The girls were super excited and had all their pool gear ready to go!

Everyone was having a good time, until I stepped on a bee! My left foot got stung and proceeded to swell. It wasn’t too bad though, and the swelling is getting better and better although it is still not back to normal. In the first picture, you can see a the bump about midway down my foot, and in the second picture, you can see my left foot is still bigger than the right.